Tuesday, 31 March 2015

A handy aspect of running a record shop based in such a small town was that the local press were always keen to support small businesses. If anything interesting was going on that I wanted to publicise or promote, I only had to pick up the phone and invariably, someone with a camera would be dispatched to record the event. I featured an example of this earlier in this series, when Donny Osmond came a-calling. Sometimes though, it was the local press who reached out to me. That's how I wound up writing brief record reviews in the newspaper for a couple of years. And every now and then, presumably during very quiet news weeks, they'd offer to run a feature piece on the shop. Here's a photo from one such piece in 1998. Times were getting tough though. I'm putting on a brave face. Either that, or I'm burying my head in the sand.

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There were some excellent David Holmes remixes around in the late 1990's, his re-imagining of 'If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next' by the Manic Street Preachers is one of my favourites.

Monday, 30 March 2015

Large Virgin Records and HMV stores opened in
a town 10 miles away. Up to now my business
had thrived on my ability to track down,
order and receive any available CD quickly
and efficiently. From 1997 onwards, the tide
subtly turned. Any CD that anyone could
possibly want was only a bus-ride or short
car journey away - why would they wait? The writing was
on the wall, but I was either too close to
the wall to read it or was deliberately
looking the other way. Those superstores,
only 100 yards apart, became engaged in an
ongoing battle to outdo each other and caused
considerable collateral damage to the
independent record shops in the town. 10
miles down the road, the ripples steadily began eroding
my business away too.

Sierra Leone musician S.E.Rogie died in 1994,
soon after recording what would become his
final LP, 'Dead Men Don't Smoke Marijuana'.
The album was finally released in 1997 on the
Real World label. This is the beautiful title
track, 'Dieman Noba Smoke Tafee'.

Sunday, 29 March 2015

I had helping hands in the shop every now and
then, but for the majority of the time I was
a sole trader. This meant whatever the
condition of my physical or emotional health
at any given moment, I still had to be behind
that counter, smiling at everybody who
stepped through the door. It was particularly
difficult to work through relationship
upheavals, one of which occurred in 1996. My
emotional trauma at that time also meant that
I wanted to keep very busy after work, so I
hit the gig circuit harder than ever before, running myself pretty ragged in the process.
There are a larger quantity of surviving ticket stubs in the
family archive from the period '96/'97 than
for any other. And many more have been lost
over the years.

I didn't get to the first UK Ramones show in 1976, but I was there to say adios amigos at the last one, 20 years later.

One man I've never seen in concert is Joe
Henry. In 1996 he issued 'Trampoline', one of
my favourite albums of the decade, probably
of all-time. 'Trampoline' marked a distinct change of
musical direction following a series of
accomplished alt-country releases and the LP perfectly reflects the slightly woozy
fragility I felt for much of the year.

Saturday, 28 March 2015

Belting out 'Powderfinger' and 'Mr Soul' during a Neil Young tribute night.

By 1995 I'd been through Madchester, Rave and
Grunge, now Brit-Pop was at its peak. I
didn't know it at the time, but my shop was
riding the crest of its final wave. Business
would never be this good again.

A few surviving ticket stubs from the year in question.

1995 was the year I first stumbled upon Chicago post-rockers Tortoise, via a
marvelous 12" single 'Gamera'. The following
year the band would release their groundbreaking
2nd LP, 'Millions Now Living Will Never Die'
and they are currently working on their 7th studio album.

Friday, 27 March 2015

A while ago, I wrote a bit about about a band
I and a couple of mates put together in 1980
(here). For my sins, I was the singer in that
band. It's probably the greatest regret of
my life that I never learned to play a
musical instrument, so to make up for my lack
of talent, I surrounded myself with people
who could actually play and nominated myself
as the person who would stand at the front
and make unpleasant noises into a microphone. In 1994, 14 years after the demise of my
little band, from my vantage point behind the
counter of a small record shop, I once again
found myself in regular close contact with
local musicians. I did anything I could to
assist, encourage and promote their bands and
solo endeavours at the time and it's a source
of great joy to know that many of them are still making music today.
Every now and then a local charity gig or
private party would crop up and I'd ask a
handful of those hugely talented young
players if they'd mind backing up this old
fool while he belted out a couple of good
old good 'uns for old times sake. They
invariably said yes, bless 'em. This explains
why you'll be seeing a couple of shots of me
clutching a mic over the next few days.
Here I am bangin' out 'Like a Rolling Stone'
at a friend's garden party in 1994. Note the dramatic return of facial hair!

------------------------------

I enjoyed a couple of tunes from Failure's
debut album, 'Comfort', in 1992 and third LP,
'Fantastic Planet' in 1996, but, for me,
1994's 'Magnified' is by far their best effort.
The band's sound on 'Magnified' packs a massive
droney wallop, particularly impressive when
you consider Failure were a three piece. I caught a memorably deafening performance at the tiny Borderline venue in London, a few days after the album's release.

Thursday, 26 March 2015

In September 1993, Virgin Records
chose Madame Tussauds in London as the venue for the retail launch of Belinda Carlisle's new LP, 'Real'. As was the norm
for these events, the alcohol flowed, the
nibbles kept coming and the album blasted
from a specially erected sound system. There
was no sign of Belinda though.
After a while, several small groups of shop
managers and buyers fell into individual
conversations around a large central room. A
man appeared with an expensive camera hanging
around his neck and gradually made his way
around the room, stopping to arrange each
small gaggle of people into a group pose,
while not actually taking any shots. We were
slightly baffled. He arrived at our group and
we asked what was happening. 'Belinda's on
her way...' he replied, grabbing a couple of
us by the shoulders '...you stand there...and
you stand there....' And he was off to do the
same to the next group, standing a few feet
away. After a few minutes, the photographer
re-emerged, this time accompanied by Belinda
Carlisle herself. As they moved from pre-posed group to pre-posed group, Belinda
paused momentarily at the front of each, just long
enough for the shutter to click, then moved on. She walked
up to us, beamed at the camera, 'click', and
walked away without saying a word. That was it. 'Real'? Surreal more
like. Then again we were at Madame Tussauds,
perhaps she thought we were waxworks.

---------------------------------------------

From the final Gun Club LP, 'Lucky Jim',
here's the sad and beautiful 'Idiot Waltz'.

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

The album launch. Venues would vary from record company to record company and from artist to artist; Genesis at the London Planetarium, Black Crowes on a roof in Kensington, Garbage in a Soho wine bar, a long forgotten indie band on a Thames-side barge, but essentially the aim was the same. Ply us with drink and nibbles, wheel the band (or at least a band-member) out to meet and greet us, play the album super-loud on very good equipment, then take our pre-release orders while we're vulnerable! These occasions were also a great opportunity to meet and socialise with fellow indie retailers. It was sometimes a lonely business running your own, erm, business.

Can't find any 1992 photos of me, so here are a few surviving ticket stubs from that year.

One album launch remains head and shoulders above the others though, and not just for the quality of the music. In 1992, after the success of their wonderful debut LP, The Sundays were signed to Parlophone and their second album 'Blind' was launched at the Abbey Road recording studio. I get shivers just thinking about it. The playback actually took place in Studio 2 (Studio 2!), though we were free to wander into the other studios and have a nose about throughout the course of evening. As a music nerd, it was an overwhelming and emotional location find myself in. Foolishly, I didn't take a camera with me to record this once in a lifetime event. I wish I had.

Tuesday, 24 March 2015

It's 1991, I'm 31 years of age and the shop is ticking along. Several evenings per week, as soon as I've locked the door I dash off to a gig, somewhere in London or the South East of England, driving home through the wee small hours. During Bob Dylan's Hammersmith residencies in 1990, 1991 and 1993 I catch all the shows, working each day then driving there and back every evening. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Where did all that energy go?

One of the bands I caught in 1991 was Throwing Muses. I'd seen them a few times by this point, the earliest in 1988 with The Pixies in support, but the 'Real Ramona' LP and 1991 shows would be the last with Tanya Donelly. Here's her standout contribution to 'The Real Ramona', 'Not Too Soon'.

Monday, 23 March 2015

The dream was to own a record shop with an
attached small label and put out singles by
local bands. I seriously looked into it at
one point, but in reality I was
never going to have the available dosh to
fund such a venture. I promoted a couple of
small local gigs (including the early psyche-pop era Shamen), but the town was simply too
small to truly allow that idea to flourish.
Instead I established contacts at several
East Anglian venues and organised coach trips
to concerts. This was quite popular for a
while at the end of the 1980's and the early
1990's. We ran coaches to The Wedding Present,
Waterboys, Wonderstuff, My Bloody Valentine,
Sugarcubes and The Happy Mondays and more. The Stone Roses at the Norwich Arts
Centre was a particularly memorable evening.
After the gig a bunch of us spent half an
hour chatting with the band, much to the
waiting coach driver's annoyance. I also ran trips
to both of Nirvana's Norwich gigs, a minibus
to the Arts Centre in 1989 and a mid-sized
coach to The Waterfront in 1990. I usually
went to every show I sold tickets for, but
those two were extremely popular even then,
so I let others go in my place - d'oh!

Today's musical selection is the brilliant
Weatherall & Farley mix of 'Abandon' by That
Petrol Emotion. Shoot me down in flames if
you like, but give me this over 'Loaded' any
day of the week.

Sunday, 22 March 2015

A few words about the title of my business. I
was the third (and final) incumbent to run a
record shop on the site, the previous two
people, both of whom I knew, had plumped
for hanging their given names above the door,
i.e. Fred's Records. I was keen to break away
from the tradition and wanted to call my shop
'something', rather than another '(insert
name here) Records'. The business title I'd
chosen was 'Rhythm Collision', inspired by
the 1982 Ruts DC album of the same name.

Looking sleepy in 1989.

A couple of weeks before I was due to take
over the business in 1986, I had a series of
meetings with a very helpful small business
support company, who provided free advice and
contacts for new starters. The first piece of
advice they gave me, however, was to ditch my
chosen business name, arguing that by putting
my own moniker above the door, I would
establish an immediate personal identity
within the small community. I reluctantly
allowed myself to be overruled and '(Insert my
name here) Records' it became. They were
right I suppose, I did become well known in
the town fairly quickly and for a while it
seemed that everyone knew my name. Rhythm
Collision would've been far cooler though.

-----------------------------------

'Torch' is my favourite track from my
favourite Psychedelic Furs LP, 'Book of
Days', issued in late 1989. If you like the
song, try to track down 'House', the only UK
CD Single from the album, where you'll find
an otherwise unavailable stripped-down
version of 'Torch' as one of the b-sides.

Saturday, 21 March 2015

My shop was located in a town that's a little
off the beaten track and so I missed out on
most of the personal appearances occasionally
granted to fellow indie stores in the area.
In October 1988, however, Donny Osmond, then
in the middle of a clutch of comeback singles
on Virgin Records, dropped by to say hello.
It was intended to be a quick low-key visit,
where he'd sign a bit of stock before being
whisked off to the next port of call, but
sensing the chance of a little free
publicity, I alerted the local newspaper who
duly dispatched a photographer to record the
event.

If you're thinking that this isn't a
particularly flattering shot of The Swede,
you'd be dead right. But you should have seen
the one they published - on the front page of
the newspaper! It was truly awful!
Donny was, as you might expect, an absolutely
charming guy, who spent most of his short
time behind my counter quizzing me about
reggae, a genre he was newly discovering. I
carried precious little reggae in stock, but
had a couple of my own compilation tapes to
hand, from which I played him a few brief
selections that he listened to intently. He
was particularly taken with 'Warrior Charge'
by Aswad as I recall.

No Donny on today's playlist, but
flick back to the 1972 post (here) to hear him and
his Brothers rocking up a storm. Instead,
this is 'Carolyn's Fingers', my all-time
favourite Cocteau Twins tune, taken from
their 1988 LP, 'Blue Bell Knoll'.

Friday, 20 March 2015

My predecessor had certainly made a good job
of running down his business. On the day of the handover, in the Summer of '86, we did a joint stock take. The count didn't take long and
the value of the remaining stock was so low
that we eventually agreed on a nominal sum of £1 for
the lot. I had no stock of consequence and no
record company accounts. Oh, and the shop was
painted bright yellow, inside and out!

By 1987, thanks to help from Dad and a
visiting Cousin, the outside of the shop was painted blue.
It wasn't ideal, it was too dark, but, on the plus side,
it wasn't yellow anymore. I'd also
accumulated most of the main record company
accounts and had gradually been increasing my
stock levels. It was tricky. I was a very
small business in quite a small town, so I
tried to offer a smattering of everything
without becoming too esoteric or blowing my
buying budget. Mainly, I relied on my
knowledge and the ability to source customer
orders quickly and efficiently. This was how
my reputation grew.

Behind the counter. 1987.

I ploughed practically every penny back into
the business in those early years, but every
now and then I allowed myself a treat. In
1987, one such treat was the debut import 45
by an Australian band called God. 'My Pal'
played at max volume, was the perfect aural
onslaught for cashing up and sorting out at
the end of the day. The quality of the song
is such that it all but overshadowed the rest
of the band's brief career and it still
sounds electrifying today. A heads up - the
repeated guitar motif will worm its way into
your ear and staple itself to your brain.
You've been warned.

Thursday, 19 March 2015

I'd vaguely stayed in touch with the guy
who'd been my first manager at the record
shop in Ipswich, when I started working there
at the back end of 1979. Not long after I'd
moved on to manage my own store in 1981, he
left the company to open his own business - a
little one man record shop in a small seaside
town. By 1986 he'd had enough and was running
the business down and trying to sell up.
Meanwhile, in addition to managing my own
store, I was now also clocking up the miles
every week in an Area Manager capacity - and
there was talk of even more branches to come.
After a period of anxious consideration, I made the decision to
go it alone. I purchased my former manager's
tiny business for next to nothing and left behind the relative security of the indie chain after seven years. It was a
nerve wracking time. I was confident in my
musical knowledge and customer service
abilities, but could I run a business? And do
all of these things by myself?

This is 'Strangers When We Meet', track one from The Smithereens' cracking debut LP, 'Especially For You'.

Wednesday, 18 March 2015

A momentous change in my life lay just over
the horizon, but for now, from 1985, here's
another twofer. The Moffs were an Australian
band, heavily inspired by all things paisley
and psychedelic. The catalogue they left
behind was slim, though if you can only track
down one piece of plastic by them, make it
this one. It's an import 7" single on
Citadel, 'Another Day in the Sun', coupled
with 'Clarodomineaux'. I can't separate the two songs. Turn off your mind,
relax and float downstream.

Tuesday, 17 March 2015

The move in December 1983, took me even
closer to London. It meant that the time it
took from locking up the shop to arriving at
a gig could be as little as an hour, depending on the venue, even
less on a really good night. In 1984 my car
could almost have done the journey down the
M11 on auto-pilot. A wave of American bands, dubbed 'The Paisley Underground', began
releasing records and traveling to our shores to
play well received concert tours, while expensive,
guitar drenched imports hit our racks
from the far distant lands of Australia and
New Zealand. All in all, there are any number
of tunes I could choose to represent this
busy musical year.

Here's one - the terrific 'Bad News Travels Fast',
US import debut 45 by The Fuzztones, which
for a time was a hugely popular racket behind
our counter. With at least 50% of the staff
anyway.

Monday, 16 March 2015

In April 1983, I took a couple of days off
work and went back to Ipswich to celebrate my
23rd Birthday with as many chums as I could
rustle up. It was a poor show,
everyone I called was unavailable for the
actual evening of my Birthday, though one of
them did offer to pick me up during the day
to head out for a couple of lunchtime pints
and a bit of a drive around out in the
sticks. We eventually arrived back in Ipswich
in darkness and before running me back to my
parent's house, my pal said he had to quickly
stop off at his own place for a moment. As we
entered his house the lights came on and
there were all my mates, suited and booted -
they'd arranged a surprise party for me. The
Mother of the pal who'd been in charge of
keeping me out of the way all afternoon had
cooked up a massive amount of food and
everyone else provided the all important
booze. It was a long and glorious evening,
one I'll never forget.

At my surprise Birthday bash. April 1983.

Towards the end of the year I was on the move
again, this time to open a brand new branch
of the indie record shop chain, for whom I'd
now worked for 4 years. We were due to open
within a busy Essex shopping centre in early
December and I was given very little time by
my boss to recruit the staff and stock the
shelves, though after two days of solid
interviewing I was fortunate to find three
great people to work with. In the days
leading up to the opening, we put in long
hours sorting and filing dozens of boxes of
records, after which I slept on the shop
floor as I hadn't had any time to find myself
digs in the town. All our hard work paid off
though, we quickly became the busiest shop in the
chain.

Today's song is from that most perfect of pop bands, Altered Images. 'Bite' was their final album and, in my opinion, their strongest overall, with great production, just the right amount of smooth sophistication and tunes to die for.

Sunday, 15 March 2015

From now on, I can't guarantee that a photo of
my ugly mug will accompany every single post
in this series. There will be more to come
here and there (including the return of
facial hair in the 1990's), but I can find
none at the moment, for instance, taken in
1982. I do, however, have a cracking musical
selection for the year in question. In the
baking heat of July 1983 I would see The
Beat's final UK show, supporting David Bowie
at Milton Keynes Bowl, meanwhile though, back
in 1982, Ranking Roger from the band joins
forces with a young Pato Banton on the
marvelously inventive 12" mix of 'Pato And
Roger (Ago Talk)'.

Saturday, 14 March 2015

After 18 months working at the record shop in Ipswich, I was offered the chance to manage my own branch 40 miles away. When I arrived in town, we actually had two branches, which my boss wanted reduced to one. So among my first acts as a manager was to tell one of the staff that their services would soon no longer be required. Mr Popular I wasn't. The move nearer London afforded me even more access to live concerts, culminating in all 7 nights of The Clash's legendary stand at the Lyceum Ballroom in October.

Back at home for Christmas 1981. In this photo, Dad is 4 years younger than I am now.

Exactly one year earlier I saw The Piranhas for the one and only time, supporting The Jam at Newcastle City Hall. At the end of 1981 they issued my favourite of all their singles, 'Vi Gela Gela'. All I could find online is the 7" version, but check out the extended 12" if you get the chance, it's an absolute joy.

In 'Vi Gela Gela' the Piranhas reference a 'tune from Af-ri-ca' they'd heard, couldn't get out of their heads, but were unable to buy over here. This is the song that made their backbones 'quiver and quake', '...listening to Western Jazz'.

Friday, 13 March 2015

Skinny as a rake and honing my people skills behind the counter of the record shop in early 1980. After leaving home my diet consisted mainly of beans on toast and beer. The moustache was not long for this world.

In mid-December 1979, The Clash released my
favourite LP of all time, the mighty 'London
Calling'. In 1980 the band hit the road on
the '16 Tons' tour to promote it. I caught a
number of shows that year, where The Clash
were supported Joe Ely, who was introduced by
Mick Jones as 'the new Hank Williams', and
the 'Dread at the Controls', Mikey Dread. I
already knew Mikey from his brilliant 1979
dub album, 'African Anthem' and in the
Summer of 1980, to coincide with his raised
UK profile, he put out the great,
'Rockers Delight'.

Thursday, 12 March 2015

One of the guys at the office rented a large
house just off Christchurch Park, a pretty
nice part of Ipswich. He took the biggest
room and sub-let the rest to friends and co-workers. I'm not sure how legal the sub-letting actually was, now I come to think
about it. When one of his 'tenants' gave
notice, he made it known at work that he was
looking to fill the room. Without thinking
too much about it, I said I'd take it and
that evening, told Mum and Dad I was leaving
home. I'm utterly appalled at my younger self
for the way I dropped this bombshell on my parents.
They knew the day would come, but were
clearly hurt at the blunt way I broke the
news, something my immaturity couldn't
comprehend, yet to their immense credit they
still helped me considerably when the day of
the move came.

Don't say I didn't warn you about the 'tache! 1979

It was at the end of 1979 that I started
working in a record shop. I wrote about
those early days on the other side of the
counter a couple of years ago (here). Earlier in the year, around the
time I was leaving home, I bought 'Telegram'
by The Monitors, a glorious, jangly little
thing that I love dearly. I loved it so much
that I also bought it again a couple of
months later, when the single was reissued on
a major label. Over the years, when times
have been hard and money short, I've
reluctantly exchanged bits of my record
collection for cold hard cash - and usually
regretted it. But I've never regretted
anything quite as much as selling my original
Monitunes copy of 'Telegram'. What a fool I
was.

Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Two hugely pivotal events in my musical life,
occurred in 1978 - within the space of 24
hours. On Friday July 14th I traveled to
Bury St Edmunds and finally saw The Clash in
concert for the first time. As I've reluctantly admitted previously, on this monumental night I was wearing both flares and a moustache - ouch. Flares were ditched from my wardrobe not long after, though the ill-advised moustache remained resolutely above my top lip for a further 18 months. What was I thinking? The gig came towards the end of the 'Out on Parole' tour, where at the early shows, Suicide occupied the support slot. By the time The Clash rolled into Suffolk they had a new opening act, The (Coventry) Specials.

Just prior to the appearance of the dreaded moustache. April 1978.

I couldn't hang around for too long after The Clash had completed their set, as I had an prompt start arranged for the following day. Bright and early the next morning, a hired minibus, driven by the hippy husband of a woman I worked with, pulled up outside my house. I got in. We were off to see Bob Dylan at Blackbushe. From a few hundred people at the Bury St Edmunds Corn Exchange, to 200,000 in a Surrey aerodrome within the space of 24 hours.

Souvenirs of Blackbushe.

I'll no doubt write in a bit more detail about these two massively important gigs one day, but for now I'm just marveling at the ongoing ramifications of that 24 hour period. Over the next 6 years I saw The Clash a further 21 times. And Bob? So far I'm on around 56 shows - and of course I'm still hoping to add to that tally, next time he comes to town.

--------------------------------

One of the self-imposed rules for this series is to exclude my all-time favourite artists, so no Bob or Clash tunes today. Instead, here's 'Where Were You?' by The Mekons, one of the truly great singles of the period and another song introduced to me by the late great Johnny P.

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

In 1977, finally, a year later than
practically all my friends, I got my first
job. I also purchased my first ever suit, a
mandatory requirement at the office. I
arrived home from work at the end of the long
first day, head throbbing from all the new
information I'd absorbed and feet throbbing
from my new leather shoes that weren't yet
worn-in, and immediately ran upstairs to
change into the comfortable familiarity of
jeans and t-shirt. Mum was horrified. She'd
been thrilled that morning, to see me dressed
smartly for the first time in living memory
and had been poised with a camera, awaiting
my return, in order to document the moment.
Before she would hand over any dinner, she
made me go upstairs, change back into my new
threads and pose for a photo-shoot outside
the front door. This was the result.

At the end of the month, I received my first
pay slip - £92! At lunch time, a friend took
me to the bank and showed me how to cash a
cheque, I hadn't got a clue. I took out £10
and headed straight to the record shop to
purchase 'Live! In the Air Age' by Be Bop
Deluxe - after which I still had £7.50 to
spare. So began the lunchtime ritual of
propping up the counter at the record shop,
which would ultimately result in me getting a
job there.
Hidden under the counter was a 'Punk' singles
box, available to peruse upon request. After hearing The Only Ones' debut single, 'Lovers of Today', on John Peel's programme one evening in the Summer of '77, I rushed into the shop the following lunchtime with the title scribbled on a scrap of paper, asked for the box, rifled through and found it. How great is this?

Monday, 9 March 2015

I mentioned in the last post that at the time
of our move to Ipswich in 1975, Dad had no
job to go to and I had to get stuck in at my
new school pretty quickly to stand a chance
of having any success in my forthcoming O-Level exams. In the event Dad was quickly
taken on by Debenhams as their new warehouse
manager, while in 1976 I unfortunately
flunked most of my O-Levels, eventually
staying on for an extra year in an attempt to
salvage something from the wreckage of my
education.

An ill-advised early attempt at a moustache. 1976

In London, Punk was starting to happen.
Meanwhile, in Ipswich I was busy catching
every band that came to town, regardless of
musical genre. So while the Pistols & co were
causing chaos in the capitol, I was grooving
to Brand X and Isotope, headbanging to Black
Sabbath, Judas Priest, Uriah Heep and
Widowmaker, stroking my chin to Barclay James
Harvest and Fruupp and tapping my foot
politely to Andy Fairweather-Low and Kiki
Dee.

Concert ephemera from the period. (Click to enlarge)

The changing musical times were making their
mark on my record buying habits though. The
fantastic 'Live at the Marquee' EP by Eddie
and the Hot Rods, for instance, was rarely
far from my turntable in the Summer of '76.
Today you get two tunes for the price of one.

Sunday, 8 March 2015

We moved from Walthamstow to Ipswich on May
3rd 1975. It was a brave move on the part of
my parents, Dad had no new job to go to and I
had to settle into a new school just 12
months shy of my O-Levels. I quickly
gravitated towards the fellow music lovers in
my class. One of those I met during my first
day at the school and would go on to share
many musical adventures with, is still my
best mate today. I'm also Godfather to one of
his children.

Exploring the wide open spaces of Ipswich in 1975.

Ipswich was on the national gig circuit, with
a major live venue little more than a mile
from my house. Before long I joined my new
pal in checking out virtually any touring
band that came to town. We saw a lot of
shows, not all good, though I soon realised
how fundamental live music was going to
become for me in the future.

-------------------

Those of a similar vintage to me will no
doubt remember the Sounds weekly music paper and may
even recall its 'rock' corespondent Geoff
Barton. Barton was almost single-handedly
responsible for pushing the awful American band Kiss onto an
unsuspecting UK public, thanks to his
incessant promotion of the risible double LP, 'Kiss
Alive'. 'Greatest album of all time'
my arse! He also shares the blame for the
rise of the appalling NWOBHM. It's not all
bad news though. In 1975 Geoff Barton introduced
me to Mr Big's debut LP, 'Sweet Silence'.
(No, not that Mr Big!) It's a real mixed bag,
where metal meets cockney knees-up and glam
meets noodley prog. It doesn't all stand the
test of time, but when it's good, it's very
good indeed.

Saturday, 7 March 2015

By 1974 we'd all enjoyed singles by Dave and Ansel Collins, The Pioneers, Bob and Marcia, Greyhound, Dandy Livingstone and several other reggae performers. I'm pretty sure that no-one in my circle of friends had heard anything quite like 'Ire Feelings' though. The song literally reverberated around the school playground, everyone was talking about it or singing along to it.

Suddenly shooting up again in 1974.

Producer Rupie Edwards used the rhythm and some vocal elements from Johnny Clarke's 'Everyday Wondering' to create a remarkable dubwise mash-up, with an unforgettable refrain. You'll be singing this for the rest of the day.

Friday, 6 March 2015

At school, we'd all got to that stage of
personalisng our exercise books, in my case
with T.Rex song lyrics. One afternoon in
geography our teacher, the wonderfully named
Mr Milton-Polly, holding a pile of marked
homework, was shouting out names and passing
comments on the quality of each individual student's work as we trundled to the front of the class
to collect it. He got to my exercise book,
called out my name and while I walked down
between the desks with all eyes on me, Mr
Milton-Polly looked at the cover and sighed heavily. He'd spotted the lyrics to the current T.Rex single scrawled boldly in felt tip pen by yours truly. As he handed the exercise book back to me he boomed, 'I don't care if you
are a Groover honey, please don't...........'
I didn't catch the rest of his sentence to be honest, drowned out as it was by
the gales of laughter from my classmates. It
was a very long walk back to my seat.

In 1973, Walthamstow had a selection of
record shops in which to hang out, good, bad
and indifferent, but invariably independent.
Right at the very top of the market though,
in Hoe Street, was a modest sized HMV. Back
then HMV wasn't the massive corporation it
would become, but it was noticeably more
formal (and organised I suppose) than its
indie counterparts. One thing HMV did have
over its rivals was space for window
displays. One Saturday, I summoned up the courage and asked if I could
have a poster from the current
window display when they had finished with
it. The sales assistant told me to come back
the following week and he'd see what he could
do. So it was that seven days later, I walked
the mile from HMV to my house with a 3½ft
tall cardboard centrepiece of Marc Bolan,
astride a tiger, tucked under my arm. And, 42
years later, I still have it.

My musical horizons were expanding rapidly
throughout 1973. I remember buying Led
Zeppelin's 'Houses of the Holy' on the
Saturday after its release, The Stooges' 'Raw
Power' too. Tangerine Dream's 'Atem' was a
blissed out favourite as was Fripp & Eno's
'No Pussyfooting'. And the wait between
Emerson Lake & Palmer's 'Trilogy' in 1972 and
1973's 'Brain Salad Surgery' felt like an
eternity. One Saturday afternoon, I was round
at my mate John's house, admiring a new poster
on his wall. It was a photo of a group of
pyramids. I asked him where he got it and he
explained that it had come free with a new
LP, which he then dug out and played for me.
That was the first time I heard 'Dark Side of
the Moon'.

'Frankenstein', a single by The Edgar Winter
Group, was a big favourite with me
and my pals.

A later appearance by the band on the
Old Grey Whistle Test, found me crouched in
front of the telly, microphone in hand, desperately shushing my parents, as I
recorded the frankly astounding performance on Dad's reel to reel tape recorder. Even
Whispering Bob was quite excited by the end
of it.

Thursday, 5 March 2015

So at the very end of 1970 I was given a
record player, then for my birthday in 1971 I
received one of those new fangled cassette
tape recorders. It felt like I'd achieved
almost total independence - could life get any
better? Meanwhile, in 1972, a ridiculous
amount of great records were being released,
some became the soundtrack of my life then
('Virginia Plain', 'Silver Machine', 'Take Me
Bak 'ome', 'I Can See Clearly Now', 'Rocket
Man', 'School's Out', 'John I'm Only Dancing',
'American Pie', 'All the Young Dudes',
'Mother & Child Reunion', 'Walk on the Wild
Side', 'You Wear It Well' and many more), while
others I discovered retrospectively, the
following year or even later. In fact I'm
still bumping into great music that I've never
heard before, from 1971, 1972 and
1973. It was a rich period.

And of course, in
1972 there was T.Rex. Read about my first LP,
'The Slider' (here) and memories of my first gig (here),
(here) and (here).

Let's leave music momentarily though, to discuss the
thorny subject of my waistline. The eagle eyed
amongst you might have noticed from the photo
in the previous post, that by 1971 I had
started to fill out a little, but by 1972 my
growth spurt had temporarily stopped, erm,
spurting - in an upwardly direction at least.
I continued to grow in an outwards direction
though - just look at this black and white
Polaroid, taken in November 1972! Count those chins!

So as I'm spoiled for
choice when it comes to selecting a song to represent this pivotal year, I thought I'd throw in
a bit of a curveball. In addition to being a big year
for several of the names I've already
mentioned, 1972 was a massive year for Donny
Osmond. 20 years later, I met Donny Osmond
and i'll tell that tale one day, but for now
I'm not focusing on the mawkish monster solo
hits, but his parallel career as a member of
The Osmonds. The Brothers had a run of three
rockin' singles during this period, which
made me and my pals briefly sit up and take
notice. The third was 'Goin' Home', issued in
1973. In the middle is the one we all know,
'Crazy Horses' from October 1972. The first
of the run, 'Hold Her Tight', came out in the
Summer of '72 and, though I didn't know it at
the time, tips its hat very strongly towards
Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'. Ignore the
date on this brilliant clip, it's definitely
1972 all the way.

Wednesday, 4 March 2015

Our story actually begins a few days before
the start of 1971, on Christmas Day 1970,
when I received this from my Parents!

No other single present in my whole life had
the same seismic effect as that one. Freedom.
The freedom to listen to what I wanted, when I
wanted. To begin with, I spirited away some
of Dad's records to play in my room, along
with the small handful I'd been given as
presents here and there. But I soon became
anxious for more.

Filling out. All dressed up for 'Big School'. 1971

Do you remember the days when all kinds of different places sold records? In Walthamstow High
Street everyone was at it. Market stalls,
clothes shops, newsagents, junk stores - look
in the corner, there'd be a rack of LP's or a cardboard box full of singles. And that's not even counting
the half dozen legitimate record shops within
walking distance of home. I started at 'Big' School' in 1971 and opposite the school gate
was a little parade of shops comprising a
newsagent, a hairdressers, a chippy (very popular at lunchtimes) and an
electrical shop*. Looking through the window
of the electrical shop one day, I spotted a
box of singles on the counter and ten minutes
later, after a quick rummage and at the cost of just a few pence, I
walked out clutching this.

* Remarkably, the electrical shop is still
there. I'm sure the business must have
changed hands at some point over the past 44
years, but looking at the exterior on a photo I found online, it appears that the decor is frozen in time (see
here). I wonder if there's
still a box of singles on the counter?